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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Happy National Ritual Celebration Week 2011!

Happy Ritual Celebration Week everyone!

Phi Mu Fraternity, founded at *Wesleyan Female College* in 1852, created National Ritual Celebration Week in December 2010! According to the Alpha Delta Pi website this week was created:"For members to reflect on why our organization was founded, why fraternities/sororities have rituals, what it means to live by one’s ritual and what being a member of an organization with a ritual means to them personally."

I love talking about what we call Big "R"/Little "r," trust me, ask any of my chapter sisters...

This is something that was passed onto me at a leadership conference last fall. The idea of R/ritual is what this week is really all about. This week of celebration is about the reflection and infusion of the message of our chapter Rituals into our everyday life, and everyday rituals.

According to the Webster dictionary: ritual |ˈri ch oōəl| noun• a prescribed order of performing such a ceremony, esp. one characteristic of a particular religion or church.• a series of actions or type of behavior regularly and invariably followed by someone : her visits to Joy became a ritual.

I love the definition above - the first applies directly to our chapter's Rituals. These ceremonies have been repeated for almost 160 years, they connect us to women across time and space. We share this ceremony with women from around the world, and with generations of women. The second, applies to our rituals. These are the things we do everyday: we wake up, brush our teeth, wash our face, drink a cup of coffee... The idea is of "Living our Ritual" is that we should bring all of the values that we share and cherish in chapter and initiation into our everyday lives. Honesty, forgiveness, respect, appreciation. How can we be more honest with sisters and friends? How can we be more respectful to classmates and our families? How can we learn to forgive and communicate more effectively with each other?

Our Ritual teaches us how to live our lives, how to make our rituals ones that would be reflective of our founders intentions. Are Ritual teaches us how to make our us better people.